


the business of caring

by novoaa1



Category: Birds of Prey (And the Fantabulous Emancipation of One Harley Quinn) (2020), DCU
Genre: Domestic, F/F, Harleen Quinzel Needs a Hug, Living Together, POV Dinah Lance, Past Joker (DCU)/Harleen Quinzel, The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie, admitting feelings!, uhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-10
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 00:55:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25175731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/novoaa1/pseuds/novoaa1
Summary: Acidic bile rises in her throat at the sight of a blackout-drunk Harley Quinn pinned against the weathered brick wall out back by a smirking man who’s more than sober enough to know better—but she is not kind, and she is most certainly not anyone’s savior.No; she is Dinah Lance, and she is not in the business of caring.(It seems to get less and less convincing every time she thinks it.)
Relationships: Cassandra Cain & Dinah Lance, Dinah Lance & Renee Montoya, Dinah Lance/Harleen Quinzel, Helena Bertinelli & Dinah Lance & Renee Montoya
Comments: 7
Kudos: 92





	the business of caring

**Author's Note:**

> genuinely curious - how come there arent that many harley x dinah fics out there? i totally thot there'd be more
> 
> n e ways
> 
> wrote this after rewatching birds of prey cause i really dig the chemistry between dinah n harley
> 
> let me know if there are any glaring errors? i have a horrible habit of not proofreading ever and i probably will later but not now :))

It’s true that Dinah isn’t exactly the ‘cute and cuddly’ type.

She scowls at lot, keeps to herself, and always has a biting retort (or three) handy for the increasingly rare occasions upon which someone’s dense enough to try and chat her up anyways. Take Ms. Blonde ’n Bubbly from last night, for example—slumped all sloppy across the bar, leaning into Dinah’s personal space and slurring nonsense about ‘harlequins’ as if she really gave a single fuck.

She doesn’t care about Blonde ’n Bubbly, but the chance to beat up three limp-dicked neanderthal alpha males in the gloomy back alley is a welcome distraction from everything else on her mind, and she takes it in stride. 

It’s not because she cares. (Though, after repeating those words in her head an innumerable amount of times, she can’t help but start to wonder if they're really true.)

Acidic bile rises in her throat at the sight of a blackout-drunk Harley Quinn pinned against the weathered brick wall out back by a smirking man who’s more than sober enough to know better—but she is not kind, and she is most certainly not anyone’s savior. 

No; she is Dinah Lance, and she is not in the business of caring. 

(She tells herself that as she’s swinging her dominant foot around for a roundhouse kick that whips Asshole #1’s oval-shaped head to the side with a spatter of blood. She repeats it again as she slams Asshole #2’s scowling face through the back window of the van before letting him fall atop a groaning Asshole #3, who’s currently writhing beneath her on the pavement like a little bitch. 

She tells herself that she likes the hits, the fight, the _rush_ —that she is a violent creature by nature, that none of this scares her; that the warm blood spattered across the swollen knuckles of her right hand excites her rather than sickens her. 

She tells herself that she doesn’t care about Harley Quinn, because she is Dinah Lance, and she is not in the business of caring.

It seems to get less and less convincing every time she thinks it.)

— — 

Cassandra Cain (that overly-ambitious tween-aged little _runt_ ) pickpockets Zsasz (of all people), gulps down that stupid _fucking_ diamond everyone’s so damn eager to get their hands on while en route to the GCPD for questioning, and ultimately manages to earn herself a bounty of half a _fucking_ mil on her greasy little head while she’s at it. 

To make things even worse, all that shit goes down in less than an hour’s time. And suddenly, Dinah’s sprinting to lock herself in the nearest women's bathroom stall to call a cop she doesn’t even _like_ to ensure the infuriating 12-year-old kid doesn’t have to pay for this, because maybe Dinah's grumpy and introverted and ill-mannered at the worst of times, but she isn’t _cold_.

(In fact, she’s the farthest thing from it. 

She’s heated and mercurial and _angry_ more often than not. It wells inside her like a cresting tidal wave, threatens to drown her beneath a sea of her own molten bitterness.

Huh. Maybe _that’s_ why she’s so goddamned grumpy all the time.)

In that moment, she doesn’t care about feigning indifference or the 'business of caring' or how Zsasz won’t hesitate to peel her face off the second he catches even the faintest wind of her duplicity.

All that’s left for her to do is sit tight, avoid getting herself killed, and pray to the heavens above that Renee Montoya is every bit the detective she claims to be. 

— — 

The tacos at Harley’s go-to fast-food Mexican joint aren’t bad, but the margaritas are better. Dinah downs two of them in quick succession before she realizes that everyone else is staring at her. 

Still, it doesn’t last for very long, because they are bruised-up and exhausted and _victorious_ ; soon enough, everyone else (sans Cassandra, of course) is drinking, too. 

A couple minutes later sees Cassandra waddling off to the nearest bathroom in hopes of finally squeezing out the stupid fucking diamond. Renee and Helena, meanwhile, have devolved into a terribly in-depth debate concerning the efficacy of handguns vs. crossbows, which Dinah would sooner eat her own hand than willingly subject herself to. 

That leaves her with nothing else to do but gawk over at the booth beside her as an ever-sprightly Harley Quinn knocks back three consecutive margaritas in 12 seconds flat. 

“Jesus, Harley,” she remarks, a single brow raised. “Save some for the rest of us, huh?”

Harley wipes her cherry-red lips with the back of her hand (smearing a thin streak of lipstick from the corner of her mouth to the ghost-pale skin of her jaw), then flashes Dinah a broad white-toothed grin that can only really be described as _manic_. “Ya snooze, ya lose, Tweety.”

“A Looney Tunes reference?” she questions, pressing her lips into a thin line to keep from smiling. (It doesn’t really work.) “ _Fuck_ , you’re old.”

“Don’t be fuckin’ _rude_ ,” Harley scoffs, waving a hand dismissively through the air. “Plus, you caught it right away. What’s that say about you, then, huh?”

“Fair enough,” Dinah concedes, smirking. She’s drunk and battered and exhausted, but she doesn’t have any real excuse for what she says next: “But maybe ease a little off the gas, yeah?” she says, nodding toward the various empty margarita glasses crowding Harley’s table. "You did _good_. There’s no rush.”

Harley frowns at that, propping her chin up atop the palm of her hand and narrowing her gaze suspiciously back over at Dinah. “What’s it to you?”

Dinah pointedly swallows down a biting retort before it can escape her, because Harley doesn’t sound defensive—just genuinely curious. It wouldn’t be fair to bite her head off for asking a simple question just ‘cause it’s what Dinah’s used to. “Call it 'friendly concern.’"

Harley squints at her, red-painted lips pushed out to form an adorable pout. “Huh… ‘Kay,” she says eventually, though she sounds far from convinced. 

Dinah heaves a quiet sigh. 

(Note to self: the business of caring fucking _sucks_.)

— — 

As she unwittingly learns more about the Joker (or 'Mistah J' as Harley most always calls him) through offhanded commentary and the occasional anecdote, she finds that Harley herself starts to make a hell of a lot more sense to her, too. 

Harley is many things—loud, impulsive, childlike… but above all else, _strong_. So fucking strong. 

Another thing Dinah discovers—she fucking _hates_ the Joker. 

(And maybe she’s starting to like Harley ~~a little~~ a _lot_ more than she originally planned.)

— — 

Something Dinah learns over the next couple months: The business of caring may be irritating and soul-sucking and _tedious_ , but it’s not always such a drag. 

For example—offering to go Dutch with Harley (and, by extension, Cass) on a spacious fixer-upper loft in one of the up-and-coming neighborhoods downtown. That was a fucking _leap_ , even for her. 

It’s also probably the most uniquely challenging thing she’s ever been faced with in her 24 years of life, because accommodating for the diet of a) someone who eats like a 12-year-old, b) an actual 12-year-old, and c) a full-grown man-eating hyena is… challenging, to say the very least. 

There’s also Cass’s slippery-fingered habit to account for, along with Harley’s utterly singular penchant for blatantly illegal activities—which means a couple things (so far): 

Firstly—people Dinah doesn’t even know beefing with her over some shit Harley (or Cass) pulled to piss them off. 

(Harley and her long list of grievances past really is no fuckin’ joke.)

And secondly—contraband. Contraband _everywhere_ : keys of cocaine (which Harley _swears_ she’ll fence soon) behind the couch cushions, thick banded stacks of stolen cash beneath the sink, various pieces of high-end golden jewelry (some of them carved with names that _definitely_ don’t belong to any of them) scattered all across the living room.

It exasperates Dinah most days, and damn near drives her crazy on all the rest. 

But there’s good in it, too. There’s movie marathons on Friday nights and back-and-forth banter with Cass (the mouth on that kid is truly something else) and an abundance of quality time spent with Harley, who’s quickly becoming one of the only people Dinah can tolerate for more than a day or two. 

All that (and a bunch of other unconventional quirks that Dinah surprisingly doesn’t much mind) more than makes up for the rest of it.

And, besides… She refuses to be that asshole that talks a big game about being there for Harley, being someone she can count on—only to pick up and bolt the second she shows a side of herself that Dinah doesn’t necessarily fuck with. 

She fucks with Harley, and that means she fucks with _all_ of it—the good, the bad, the crazy. 

She fucks with Harley, period. End of discussion. 

(And, yeah. Whatever. She guesses Cass can stick around, too.)

— — 

Turns out, Harley’s a gymnast—or, at least, she used to be. 

Dinah kinda suspected something like that from the very start, the way Harley seemed to run literal circles around Gotham’s most elite assholes, and do so with _style_... Hell, the woman would be landing perfect aerials from one ceiling beam to the next, vaulting herself over tall-ass fences in a matter of seconds like nobody’s business… literally bending over backwards in the middle of a fist-fight to dodge a swing.

Dinah had half a mind to call a chiropractor the last time that happened. 

Still, it’s a different thing to receive confirmation straight from the source, and another entirely to _see_ it… well, in a context that isn’t fighting, she means. 

Dinah comes back to the loft one night—stumbles through the door at something like 3:00am after busting up a drug ring with Helena and Renee over in West Side. 

She doesn’t necessarily expect anyone to be awake, but she also isn’t surprised to find that someone is: a scantily-dressed Harley doing some sort of _insane_ gymnastics stretch in the living room. She’s upside-down and supporting herself on two hands, legs stretched out to either side to form a perfect middle split in the air, _The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie_ playing quietly on the television—which Harley is somehow managing to watch with rapt attention all the while.

Dinah tries not to stare as she drops her keys on the kitchen counter and busies herself with fixing a glass of water from the tap—the operative word there being 'tries.’

But you know what? It’s not _her_ fault that Harley decided to have a 3:00am viewing of _SpongeBob_ -fucking- _SquarePants_ while simultaneously doing gymnastic-bendy shit wearing only a bralette and a pair of _very_ tight bright-pink spandex that might as well be a fucking thong for how much they conceal. 

It’s not _her_ fault that puttering around the kitchen just so happens to give Dinah a perfect view of Harley’s backside and those perfect milky-pale inked-up legs tensing to hold her pose; the twitching musculature of her shoulders and upper back as she strains to hold herself aloft. 

(Plus, there’s the benefit in having a near-guarantee that Harley won’t catch her staring, what with her eyes glued to the TV and her back facing Dinah.)

None of that is her fault, okay? 

She just… knows how to appreciate art. It’s—Whatever. 

A high-pitched giggle from Harley draws Dinah from her inner ramblings. 

Something funny must’ve happened in the movie, she reasons. She circles the kitchen counter, then pads over toward the television and leans herself over the sofa back, water in hand. 

… And promptly finds herself in the same position as before—right behind Harley with a completely unobstructed view of her backside—except _closer_. 

She really didn’t think this one through. 

With a noiseless sigh, she doubles the considerable willpower she’s already exerting in an effort to keep her attentions steadfastly on the screen (whatever’s happening there) rather than Harley’s ass. 

(It goes about as well as you’d expect.)

Another giggle from Harley has her snapping her attentions back to the pink starfish on the screen, even despite knowing there’s no _way_ that Harley’s taken notice of—

“Take a picture, sweetcheeks—it’ll last longer,” Harley teases in that sugary-sweet tone of hers, still dutifully facing the television. 

Despite herself, Dinah’s cheeks flare with heat. “You’d like that, Quinzel, wouldn’t you?” It’s an attempt at normalcy, at composure—or the illusion of it, at least. (It’s not all that good.)

Harley raises either leg until they’re pressed together, toes pointing straight up at the high ceiling overhead—and promptly drops herself, falling feet-first towards Dinah until she hits the hardwood flooring ass-first with a quiet _“Oof!”_

Dinah cocks a single brow down at her, feigning indifference. “That sounded painful."

Harley (now sprawled across the floor) shrugs, mischief dancing in her eyes. 

“Did you like the view?” she questions lightly— _too_ lightly, a wide smirk spread across her pretty features like she knows something Dinah doesn’t. 

( _The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie_ continues playing on the flat screen, and Dinah pays it no mind.)

She swallows, thinks _What the hell_ , and decides to answer honestly: “I always do.”

“Is that so?” Harley licks her lips, grin widening to bare a row of perfectly-straight white teeth. “Ya never told me that before.”

Dinah shrugs her shoulders, struggling to keep her expression neutral even as her heart pounds in her chest. “You never asked.”

“Wait a minute.” Harley’s toothy grin morphs quickly into a frown, brows furrowed as she pulls herself up to sit cross-legged on the floor. Her blue-eyed gaze narrows suspiciously up at Dinah, as if searching for something. “Are you messin’ with me?”

Dinah blinks owlishly down at her. _Huh?_ “Huh?”

“‘Cause if ya are, it ain’t funny,” Harley informs her sharply, though the doleful look in her eyes betrays the curt annoyance in her tone. 

_Jesus Christ_. “Harley, babe, I’m not messing with you.”

“Are you sure?” Harley questions skeptically with pursed lips, crossing her arms just beneath her ~~breasts~~ _chest!_ Chest. That’s what Dinah meant. Beneath her… yeah. “Last chance to come clean.”

“Harley, look—I wouldn’t say it if I didn’t mean it.” She takes a deep breath, heartbeat thudding deafeningly in her ears. “I’m into you, okay? I suck at talking—hell, I suck at caring in general... But it’s the truth.”

Harley jaw drops at that, which isn’t super helpful considering Dinah’s just bared her soul—or at least, what she considers to be baring her soul—at shit o’clock in the morning with the fucking _SpongeBob SquarePants_ movie playing in the background. 

“It’s okay,” Dinah reassures her after a solid minute of silence, though her voice is gravelly and she feels a bit like crying. “You don’t have to feel obligated to say you’re into me, too—"

“But what if I am?” Harley interjects, head tilted and blue eyes wide like she means it. 

“That’s… " For once, Dinah is entirely at a loss. "For real?”

Harley nods her head fervently up and down, pigtails bouncing.

Dinah’s mouth feels dry. “Woah.”

She watches as a slightly distant look enters Harley’s blue-eyed gaze and a crease forms between her well-shaped brows, like she’s thinking really hard about something. 

A second later, the contemplative expression clears, and she's looking up to Dinah with round, curious eyes before asking, “Are we going to have sex now?” 

Dinah clenches her jaw, revulsion and anger churning low in her gut. Has she mentioned lately how much she hates the Joker? “No, Harley,” she answers, surprised (and marginally impressed) at how unnaturally _calm_ she manages to sound. “That’s not how relationships work.”

Harley pushes out her lower lip and frowns, plainly confused. “Then, what do we do?”

Dinah doesn’t miss a beat: “How about a date?”

Harley’s lips twitch into the shaky beginnings of a smile, though the wariness in her eyes remains. “A date?”

Dinah shrugs, silently willing herself to keep her cool (what precious little of it remains). “Why not?”

A pinkish flush rises to Harley’s ghostly-pale cheeks, then, an uncharacteristically shy smile curving her unpainted lips. “… I’d really like that.”

Dinah grins, warmth burgeoning steadily in her chest. “Me, too.”

— —

**Author's Note:**

> thots?
> 
> (my [tumblr](https://psyches.co.vu/))


End file.
